Washington - By almost any measure, Google's Gmail
(http://mail.google.com) is a hit.
Although the free e-mail service has been widely available for
only a couple of years, it's already the third most popular Web-based
e-mail offering online - behind only Yahoo Mail and Windows Live
Hotmail, which have been around for over a decade.
Many were initially attracted to Gmail because the service offered
more storage space than competitors - and at six gigabytes and
growing, that's still a major draw. Yet Gmail boasts a lot more than
oodles of space to store your messages.
The fact is, Gmail is the first Web-based e-mail service that's
full-featured enough to compete with your standard application-based
e-mail programs. Here's why.
---Better searching
Use any e-mail program long enough, and the primary struggle
becomes finding an e-mail message that you're looking for - and fast.
You might hope that given Google's prowess as a search engine
company, Gmail would excel in this area, and it does.
Sitting atop your inbox in Gmail is a search box, and it's as
simple as the one that greets the millions of people that use Google
every day. You can simply type a search term - whether it's the name
of a person who sent a message, some text within a message, your own
name, or an e-mail address - and Gmail will retrieve relevant e-mail
messages with uncanny precision.
Compare this to other e-mail programs and services - in which
you'll need to fill out one or more boxes pertaining to who sent the
message, the subject, or the recipient - and you'll quickly see how
Gmail both saves you time and pleases you more often with search
results that matter.
You can get specific if you want to by clicking a 'Show search
options' link and being more specific about the parts of e-mail
messages you want to search, but you don't have to - and that's what
makes Gmail's search unique.
---Account consolidation
One of the big problems with free, Web-based e-mail services in
the past has been that you couldn't use them to receive messages from
other accounts that you may have, nor could you use a traditional e-
mail program to receive messages from your free account. Gmail has
taken those concerns away, making this a free service that you can
migrate to slowly, if you wish.
There's a Settings link at the top of your screen in a Gmail
account. Click that, and you'll just about as many configuration
options as you will in a robust traditional e-mail application. And
you'll also find an Accounts tab, where you can configure Gmail to
retrieve messages from your other accounts. You'll also see a
Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab, where you can get POP settings that
allow you to access your Gmail from another program, such as
Microsoft Outlook, or have Gmail automatically forward messages you
receive in your Gmail account to another account.
---Robust filtering
Keeping your inbox uncluttered is a great way to ensure that
you're not overloaded with messages all at once. Most good
traditional e-mail programs help you handle the incoming deluge by
allowing you to set up filters and folders to automatically route
incoming messages to descriptive folders that you can attend to
later.
Your Gmail account has a 'Create a filter' link. Click it, and you
can set up specific rules for what to do with a message when it
arrives. You can filter messages by criteria that includes subject,
recipient, addressee, or words that might be included in the message.
Spam filtering is another area where Gmail excels. Gmail's spam
filtering technology is a closely-guarded secret, but most agree that
the spam filters in Gmail, turned on by default, work as well if not
better than those that come with the fee-based Cloudmark Desktop,
available for traditional e-mail programs.
---Keyboard shortcuts
Web-based e-mail services have always been too mouse-intensive. In
part this was because they were designed for the browser interface,
which has always made keyboard shortcuts more difficult to implement
than they are in standard programs. Nevertheless, overuse of the
mouse just slows you down - and can lead to repetitive stress
injuries to boot.
Gmail changes all that by cleverly making the keyboard useful
again in the context of a Web browser. From anywhere within Gmail,
pressing the letter 'c' will take you directly to the Compose Mail
screen, allowing you to start a new message. Pressing the letter 'r'
allows you to reply to a message that you're reading while tapping
'f' will allow you to forward a message. Hitting 'a' enables you to
replay to 'all' of those on a recipient list. 'N' takes you to the
next message in your inbox, while 'p' takes you to the previous one.
The list of keyboard shortcuts is extensive. permitting an almost
mouse-free experience if that's more to your liking. For the complete
list, just click the Help link in Gmail and type 'keyboard' in the
search field.
---The final word
No one likes moving to a new e-mail program. There's a new
interface to learn and a new e-mail address to pass around to your
friends and colleagues. Gmail, though, even has the latter concern
covered, since you can use the service merely as a portal to your
existing accounts, even sending messages from Gmail that go through
the servers of your main e-mail account. It's tough not to like what
Google has done with Gmail - and at no cost, the price is certainly
right.
USA
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